I fetched a tight grip on my courage, walked across to the doorway,
and peered into the summer-house. It was empty, and I stepped
inside--superstitiously avoiding, as I did so, to tread on the spot
where my father's body had lain.
Ann the cook--so Plinny told me--had found his chair overset behind
him, but no other sign of a struggle. He had been stabbed in front,
high on the left breast and a little below the collar-bone, and must
have toppled forward at once across the step, and died where he fell.
The chair had been righted and set in place, perhaps by Ann when she
washed down the step. A well-defined line across the floor showed
where the cleaning had begun, and behind it the scanty furniture of
the place had not been disturbed. At the back, in one corner stood
an old drum, with dust and droppings of leaf-mould in the wrinkles of
its sagged parchment, and dust upon the drumsticks thrust within its
frayed strapping; in the corner opposite an old military chest which
held the bunting for the flagstaff--a Union flag, a couple of
ensigns, and half a dozen odd square-signals and pennants. I stooped
over this, and as I did so I observed that there were finger-marks on
the dust at the edge of the lid; but, lifting it, found the flags
inside neatly rolled and stowed in order.
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